First F.E.A.R. 3 Promo Art Revealed

A Spanish gaming magazine has unearthed what is apparently a first look at F.E.A.R. 3, the rumored third entry in Monolith's creepy horror-FPS franchise.

Information about Monolith's new F.E.A.R. title, which we will once again warn is very spoilerish if accurate, was leaked last month via a casting call for a web-only promo for the game. F.E.A.R. 3, which by all appearances will actually be known as F.3.A.R., will feature the return of the characters who made the first game so great: Alma Wade and her deranged, devoted son Paxton Fettel. Her other son, the hero of the first game who was sadly never given a proper name of his own, will also be involved but this time will apparently join his mom and bro on the side of darkness.

A proper look at the new game will be coming next month, according to an unnamed Spanish gaming magazine dug up by NeoGAF, but in the meantime we can check out the first F.3.A.R. promotional art. The image features an older Alma front and center, naturally, flanked by a dude with a bullet hole in his forehead - presumably Paxton Fettel, although the resemblance stops at the extraneous cranial ventilation - and a guy with a machine gun who looks suspiciously like Ethan Thomas. Beneath them, along the bottom of the frame, a city burns.

It's all rather generic and unexciting save for one thing: What appears to be a well-advanced fetus growing inside Alma (or, perhaps, floating magically above the city.) Gamers who made it to the unspeakably disturbing end of F.E.A.R. 2 will know what that's all about and it could possibly suggest that despite not having been mentioned in the original rumor, Michael Beckett, the protagonist of the second game, will be returning as well.

Thoughts? Are we looking forward to a return to the more horror-oriented gameplay of the first F.E.A.R., or the greater focus on action that Project Origin brought to the party? And what's this business of replacing letters with numbers in the titles of sequels, anyway? "F.3.A.R." just looks silly. Maybe it's just a placeholder? Keep your eyes open in April to find out!